Page 52 of The Chaosweaver's Daughter
“Caneveryonesee that?” Ataht inquired.
“Yes. Everyone outside. Because the inside . . .?”
“Is hollow! It’s a shell,” Della explained.
“Correct,” Nesrina agreed in her most charming teacher voice.
Kas’s eyes grew round. “My gods—” Thecomplaintshe’d be hearing from his people. “They’ll think they’re going mad!”
“Oh!” She released the illusion, and apopwas the sole sign it hadn’t been his imagination. Then, as if a god calligraphed the sky in magenta ink, the word “sorry” swooshed through the atmosphere above his home.
Kas laughed. “They’re going to think the gods have returned.”
The message warped and expanded: “Not a god. Just Nes.”
“What if they’re on the wrong side of the words?” Della asked.
A reversed line of text appeared below the first.
Grinning, a steady rumble of laughter flowing from his lungs, Kas turned to the spectacular Nesrina Kiappa.
She returned his gaze with one of her own, accompanied by the cutest damned smile he’d ever seen.
seventeen
Nesrina puts beads on a string.
Afewdayslater,Nesrinafound a package addressed to her in the entrance hall. Snatching it from atop the pile, she hardly even glanced at the rest of the delivery, lest Lord Kahoth accuse her of snooping.
Mama mailed her a note and the heartstone necklace she’d requested. It was part of her backup plan with Lord Kahoth. Papa gave Nes the necklace when she was young. While she couldn’t bring herself to part with every bead, the loss of a few was a reasonable price to pay for the chance to attend the symposium. Directly against her skin, even all nine beads could no longer fully stifle her magic, though they’d make a nice dent in it. The twins, however, should still be weak enough for three beads each to work like a charm.
In her letter, Mama asked how Nes was faring, and casually mentioned she had an unexpected visitor, Prince Nekash.Ew. He was passing through Napivol and had offered to take an appointment with Mama in lieu of someone lower-ranking from the king’s staff. The interview included questions about Nesrina’s upbringing, her father’s background, and more. Nes figured it was the king checking references since she hadn’t had any written referrals to bring with her to court. She hoped the Rashoolis spoke well of her too.
She had much to tell Mama in her reply, mainly about the children and her upcoming trip to the symposium. Mama wasn’t as avidly anti-aristocracy as her father had been, but Nes suspected Tamla Kiappa wouldn’t respond well to hearing of her daughter’spersonalinteractions with the duke—nor with the departed soldier, for that matter. Those weren’t the sort of things one told one’s mother.
“It’snotworking!”Della’svoice was laced with frustration.
“Iknow,” Ataht whined.
Nesrina grinned. She’d given them their new necklaces and asked them to create balls and mallets for a game of croquet. They couldn’t do it. “Good.”
“What’s ‘good’?” Akkas’s rumbling voice smashed into her before he followed it into the glade.
“Nothing! We can’t do magic anymore!” Della screeched.
The top two buttons of the duke’s shirt were undone in the heat. With one hound on each side, shirtsleeves rolled up, and a bit of branch stuck in his ever-tousled hair, Lord Kahoth looked how she imagined Vites—the forest god, not the dog—would appear.
“Help, Uncle Kas!” Ataht pleaded before pointing an accusatory finger at Nes. “Shedidsomething to us!”
He laughed, unalarmed. “Nesrina, what did you do to my hellions?”
She dragged her eyes up from his chest, her stomach flipping at the sound of her first name on his lips. “The heartstone’s here.”
“Let me see,” he said, sounding giddy... over some rocks. Ataht pulled his necklace off and handed it over.
“How does it work?” the princess asked, trying again to create something, and scowling when she couldn’t.
“It shields our magic, blocks it, stops us from drawing on chaos.”
